Six Cypriots among Britain’s richest

SIX CYPRIOTS are placed in The Sunday Times ‘Rich List 2000’, the paper’s "definitive guide to wealth" in the UK.

The highest Cypriot on the list was Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who ranked 44th with an estimated worth of £500 million sterling. The 33-year-old founded the no-frills airline easyJet in 1995. He has since started a successful internet café and plans to increase business with the easy RentaCar venture, which aims to hire out cars for as little as £9 a day. Haji-Ioannou was number 18 on the year’s biggest risers with assets up from £313 million in 1998.

The Sunday Times ranked Chris Lazari 120 on the list, with £250 million. The 53-year-old Cypriot went to Britain in the early 1970’s, working as a waiter and starting a fashion business before amassing a fortune in property. Last year he acquired the lease on 25 Berkeley Square, the international headquarters of Cadbury Schweppes, for £42 million, bringing his total property holdings to £240 million. His other assets amount to £10 million.

Glasgow Cypriot Tasos Symeonides and his wife Ailsa possess a fortune of £135 million, the 228th largest in the UK. The couple co-founded the software development firm Axios. Based in Edinburgh, Axios is the most successful software developer in Scotland. Symeonides, 50, was a senior manager of the Bank of Scotland before starting the software development firm in 1988.

Also based in Scotland, Sir Reo Stakis and his family are placed 594th on the list after selling the Glasgow hotel chain he founded in 1942. The sale generated £50 million, bringing total family wealth to £56 million when added to other assets. Stakis, who is 87 years old, ranks sixth among the UK’s oldest millionaires.

Pop Icon George Michael’s £55 million put him in the 595th spot. Son of a Cypriot businessman, Michael, 36, rose to fame in the 80’s as a member of Wham! Despite a conviction for lewd behaviour in Los Angeles, his career has taken off again thanks to recordings such as ‘Songs from Last Century’. Michael is number 20 among the UK’s richest music stars.

Cypriot businessman Theo Paphitis ranked 914th on the list with total assets estimated at £30 million. Paphitis, 40, is current chairman of the Millwall football club. He made his name in property finance and estate agency work. He also rescued the Ryman stationary chain. Other major assets include the lingerie retailer, La Senza.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.